Saturday, June 20, 2020

Cyber Welness

Cyber Wellness :-
Cyber Wellness refers to the positive well-being of Internet users and a healthy cyber culture for the Internet community. It involves an understanding of the risks of harmful online behaviour, an awareness of how to protect oneself and other Internet users from such behaviour, and recognition of the power of the Internet to benefit oneself and the community at large. Cyber Wellness is a broad term that is inclusive of Cyber Ethics, Cyber Security and Cyber Safety. The concept of wellness lays emphasis on the whole individual and the understanding that our health is affected by all that we do, think and believe. It is a proactive approach that promotes an optimum manner of physical and social functioning and leads to emotional well-being.
The three aspects of Cyber Wellness can be understood as below:
1. Cyber Ethics- refers to appropriate, responsible and ethical online behaviour that governs all our interaction with other Internet users and emphasizes on the exercise of cyber values.
2. Cyber Security- refers to the protection of our computer systems, devices and networks from any unauthorized access or misuse by others.
3. Cyber Safety- refers to following safe practices that minimize the risks of being harmed by the dangerous behaviour of others such as cyber-bullying and stalking.
Cyber Wellness Values: There are five cyber wellness values hidden in the Values Grid.
 1. Value 1 Responsibility: Responsibility is being accountable for your behaviour. An example of being responsible as an Internet user would be to play online games only for a fixed and reasonable amount of time.
2. Value 2 Respect: To respect others is to have a regard for them and be appreciative of them. An example of being respectful would be to communicate politely with others while writing emails or posting comments on a blog or in a discussion forum.
3. Value 3 Compassion: Compassion is a feeling of wanting to help someone in trouble. For example, you are being compassionate if you are supporting a friend who is being cyber bullied by reporting the act to parents, teachers or any other person of authority.
4. Value 4 Resilience: Resilience is the ability to recover from an undesirable change or incident. An example of being resilient would be to respond appropriately and not give up if you have faced any disturbing experience online.
 5.Value 5 Integrity: Integrity is the quality of being honest and fair. For example, if you follow copyright regulations and do not copy-paste content from other sources for your school assignments then you are exercising integrity. 

Threats to Cyber Wellness: Following are the types of threats one may face on the Internet. All these threats obstruct cyber wellness and a healthy cyber culture.
1. Cyber Bullying- Cyber bullying is using technology to harass someone, by sending or posting mean, threatening and intimidating messages. Examples of cyber bullying include abusive emails, malicious posts on social networking sites, inappropriate image tagging, uploading of embarrassing photographs, creating fake profiles or Web sites designed to hurt another person and so on.
2. Cyber Predators- Cyber predators are adults who exploit children and teenagers by using Internet communication tools such as mobile phones, chat rooms, social networking sites and even email. Their main motive is sexual abuse.
3. Gaming Addiction- Gaming addiction is an excessive or compulsive use of online games at the cost of health, education, real life social engagements and even cleanliness. Last year it was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association.
4. Identity Theft- Identity theft is a fast growing cyber threat where a person makes unauthorised use of someone else’s name and personal information such as passwords, usernames, banking or financial data to commit theft or other crimes.
5. Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism- Copyright Infringement takes place when a person copies, distributes, publicly performs or displays copyrighted work without the permission of the author or creator. Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as your own.
6. Malware- A Malware, short for ‘malicious software’, is software that gets installed on your laptop, desktop computer or smartphone and performs a multitude of 4 undesirable tasks such as stealing passwords, deleting files or reformatting the hard disk

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